A Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department SWAT team was called to the scene, and a crisis negotiator spoke with the man in the hours before the barricade situation ended.

“All I heard was a glass shattered, which was the window, and I heard a girl saying ‘help, help,'” said Clarabell Sotello, who lives next door to the apartment where the man was barricaded. “The guy said, ‘I have a knife. I’m going to kill her.’ So at that point I called 911.”

Sotello was among the dozens of residents in the area whose homes were evacuated during the incident. There were allowed to return home Friday morning after the standoff ended.